Activist Wants Mounties to Shield Him From Hunters

An anti-hunting activist said Saturday that he will seek the protection of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from seal hunters who broke into his hotel room in Quebec, roughed him up and forced him out of the province.

Paul Watson, who is based in Marina del Rey, said in a telephone interview from Toronto that he intends to ask for a Mountie escort when he returns to seal hunting grounds on an expedition to collect fur shed by molting baby seals.

Watson said he and his entourage, which included actor Martin Sheen, were attacked by seal hunters at a hotel in Iles de la Madeleine late Thursday. Watson said that when more than a dozen hunters burst into his room, he feared for his life and “dropped” three with an electronic stun gun but was overpowered and beaten. Sheen was not injured.

Quebec police restored some order, but Watson said he got on a plane for neighboring New Brunswick after the officers said they could not guarantee his safety.

The activist is unpopular with seal hunters for his role in the 1980s campaign to outlaw the hunt for baby harp seals.

Watson is a native of Canada whose militant Sea Shepard Conservation Society is headquartered in Marina del Rey. The Canadian government still has charges outstanding against him for interfering with Spanish and Cuban fishing boats in international waters near Newfoundland in 1993.

The purpose behind Watson’s current trip, he said, is to promote an environmentally friendly alternative to the hunt. His group plans to go out to the seal spawning grounds and collect the fur naturally shed by baby harp seals as they molt their white coats. He said a German company is willing to buy the fiber as insulating filler for comforters.